The next weeks held no call or visit from Erik. Cassandra spent her evenings in rehearsal or just watching the opera company from backstage. She paced around slowly, keeping alert, hoping to catch sight of that cape or to smell his peculiar scent. It came to where she only had a few days before she was scheduled to leave the opera house and move on to the Paris Conservatory to do a series of master classes. Unable to find a manner of communication to her friend, she merely wandered about in hopes of finding him. She had considered following the tunnels behind her dressing room mirror, but the memory of the boat stopped her. She would get to the river with no way to cross it. And the intrusion if she did attempt that path…He may be angry. All this time the managers were trying to convince her to buy the opera house as well. Her manager had said, if she was truly interested, to purchase it and he could come manage it, leaving her smaller investment in the hands of one of his subordinates. It seemed as though everyone was in favor of her purchase of the opera house, even Erik. He had never said why, but she knew it was what he wanted no matter what he said.
It was in this attitude that she finally developed the courage to go down the corridor behind the mirror and force him to talk to her. "Force him," she laughed to herself. She doubted one could force him from a burning building if he didn't want to go, as stubborn as he could be. In their short friendship she had discovered that. She went in the morning, hoping he would have little else to do at that time of day. It also gave her a way to avoid the invitations out into the sun that everyone gave her daily. Slipping into her dressing room unnoticed, she went to the mirror and pushed it aside.
Erik sat at his desk. He had been working on the work for weeks, and had rarely left or even eaten. He needed to get it done. He had to finish it. The deadline was approaching and she would leave him. She would be dead to him. He needed to hurry. He needed to work. He needed…sleep. His head slouched and lay on the paper he had been writing on.
It was in this manner that Cassandra found him. A boat had been tied where the corridor met the river, begging her to take it. As she climbed out of the boat, she stared at his back hunched over the desk he worked at. She didn't want to startle him. She stood on the steps for a moment, before softly beginning to hum. It was how her father had always awoken her when she was little, humming softly, slowly getting louder till she awoke. She kept her humming low and slowly approached him, laying a hand on his shoulder.
His head rose and he turned to look at her.
"Good morning," she said softly, smiling at him, proud at his not being angry with her for her manner of waking him. He simply stared at her.
"You found your way alone?" he asked quietly.
"Don't be angry with me," she all but begged, "I missed you and couldn't find you anywhere. I have to leave the opera soon but had to speak with you." He didn't seem phased by the news, as though he had already known. He clasped her hand and stood stiffly from his desk. He pulled a chair out from against the wall and indicated she should sit, then pulled the chair from the desk over to face it. She fidgeted a little, not sure where to begin.
"I'm considering purchasing the opera house," she began. His eyes seemed to struggle not to betray the giddiness in his body then. "My manager is coming down from London later this week to take over from the partners. I want to be sure this was a…pleasant arrangement for you," she concluded. He looked away for a moment, as though weighing his options.
"When do you leave for the conservatory?" he asked.
"The day after tomorrow. But…if, well, I will own the opera house and, um, it wouldn't be unheard of for me to…lodge here rather than the school," she stuttered. He wanted to laugh at her, and, though he tried to contain it, it came out, bubbling up like water. Cassandra wasn't certain what she had done at first, but reflecting on her sentence, she realized how funny it had sounded and laughed as well. Cassandra smiled at him, but he merely smirked at her.
"So unsure of yourself in regards to your own property, all but asking permission from me to stay in your own opera house when it should be the opposite," he proclaimed. She continued to chuckle at herself, looking down at her hands. She wore gloves to protect her hands from the light outside, her arms covered to her wrists, her collar coming up to her chin. She would have worn a wide brim hat if she had needed it, but was now indoors. She was fashionable, but noticeably covered. Anyone else would have seen her to be conservative, but Erik recognized it as her mask.
Her gently took one hand and pulled off the glove. Her hands were well taken care of, one shade of light pink from the constant wearing of gloves. Her fingertips were calloused from the strings of her instrument, but not rough. Her other hand was the same. When he had taken off her gloves, she looked up at him and carefully reached up to take off his mask. It was almost a ritual for them by now. They could not talk to each other honestly with the boundaries held that they had established for others. He was more reluctant to take off his mask that she her gloves, but he did it. He understood that she wanted, needed, to see his face. She smiled at him when it was gone, as she always did when he took it off. It was a change to have someone smile at his distorted face rather than look repulsed by it.
"Erik…" she began softly, looking into his eyes. He stood abruptly and walked to his desk, picking up the stack of papers and handing them to her.
"Its got one more cadence to add to the end, but it is finished," he told her. She looked through the music curiously. It was an ensemble piece, for a chamber group. An odd instrumentation with a violin, cello, clarinet, string bass, oboe, French horn and percussion, but as she looked through she saw how it worked. It was amazingly thought out and progressed interestingly. The violin was the main attraction, with the clarinet and horn working together as a viola substitute. The percussion was mostly rumbling on the timpani, but there was also a solo with the string bass the looked like it would be like thunder. A storm.
She looked up at him. "What's it for," she asked.
"I thought you could try it at the conservatory. The crowd here wouldn't appreciate it, but the students at the school might think it interesting," he concluded as he reclaimed his seat.
"Thank you," she said quietly, still analyzing it in her head. The chords were thick, especially in the beginning, and there would be dissonance, but it would work. She smiled as she looked at the piece. "What's it called?" she asked.
"I thought you could title it," he replied. She smiled at that.
"May I hear it before I title it?" she asked
"Of course," he replied and took the music from her to finish the ending. She sat quietly as he worked, until she couldn't stand the silence.
"Why do you want me to buy the opera house? Truly?" she asked. He put a final note on the page and returned it to her. Looking at her, he knew she really did want a response. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He could lie, say it was to be sure he wouldn't be hunted down, or he could say it was so the music would be of better taste, but her knew he couldn't lie to her over something so serious to her. He looked up from his hands and focused on a brick in the opposite wall, right beyond her face. Blinking, he caught her eye and just stared at her, his mouth open trying to articulate unformed words. Finally, he convinced himself to just blurt it out.
"I didn't want you to leave. I wanted you to have to stay in Paris…in the opera house. I didn't want you to leave." He looked away from her then, refusing to meet her eyes. He had betrayed Christine in admitting his feelings for Cassandra in this manner. He had betrayed Cassandra by telling her of his love. She was too good for him, too close to his perfect dream, for him to honestly pursue. She would leave, and she needed to. Her career was just beginning and being tied down in the bowels of an old opera house to a half man was not the way to grow in her career.
Cassandra was stunned. Not that he cared for her, she had suspected that in spite of all his stubbornness and silence, but that he had admitted it. Well, come close to admitting it. She looked at her hands, delicate and white, yet strong and calloused. When she looked up, he almost seemed as though he would cry. As though he was ashamed of himself. He was ashamed of his love for her, she realized. She looked back at her hands and could see the beginnings of one of her abnormalities peaking innocently out from under the cuff of her sleeve. He was ashamed of her discolorations, as she was ashamed. He knew that she would never be able to be out during the day, never able to have a picnic in the park, never able to take her hat off and feel the sun without the burn and scars that came. She began to cry. She was unloveable.
He saw her crying and knew it was the despair that came with being loved by a creature, not worthy to be called a human. He would never be to her what any other man could be and, because of that, he would have to let her go. He wanted to wipe away her tears as the streaked down her face.
He couldn't even bear to touch her, to comfort her as she cried. She was too hideous, too marked. As she reached up to wipe her own tears, her makeup came off and she knew he would see, once again, all of her marks and cried harder. He was ashamed of his caring for her. How couldn't he be? She slowly rose from her chair.
"I'm sorry I am not what you need," she said quietly as she walked towards the boat. He watched her go, pushing the boat through the still water till she was out of sight. He had once again lost the one he could not have. He would once again mourn.
She had left her gloves on the chair. He carefully picked them up and carried them to his desk. The wooden box still sat there and he carefully removed its sealed lid. He took out the blood red scarf and replaced it with the little white gloves. He then took the scarf to the roof top and let it be caught by the wind and swept out to the canal, out to the ocean, and out of his life.
A/N: Its not over! I promise, I wouldn't do that to you, lol. I know this one is short, but there was so much in it…Ok, I'll start the next chapter now…don't hurt me! hehe